Why I Wrote Living With Sickle Cell Disease: The Struggle to Survive

Author(s)
Published on
June 25, 2012

Living With Sickle Cell Disease: The Struggle to Survive was a book I absolutely had to write. Prompting me to undertake such a daunting project was finally having had it with being treated as less than a person whenever I showed up at an emergency room.  More times than not, I would cry in extreme pain, only to have medical personnel tell me to “cut out the drama.”  I also got tired of being viewed as a drug addict seeking a fix.

While this book serves as a memoir about my life with sickle cell disease, I also intend for Living With Sickle Cell Disease to be my message to doctors and nurses that they would do well to treat sickle cell patients not only with medicines, but also with compassion.

I also wrote Living With Sickle Cell Disease, to tell readers how I was able to attend college, teach school and raise a daughter by myself. As I say on my website, www.judygrayjohnson.com, I hope my memoir advances conversation on sickle cell disease, and in telling others who suffer from sickle cell disease and other chronic illnesses that they too can rise above the challenges their own bodies throw at them.

So far, the early reviews have been positive. Several people who have read the book have told me it is powerful and will tell their friends. One of the first endorsements came from a 90-year-old man who picked up a galley copy and read it from cover to cover in one sitting. He said, “I couldn’t put it down.”

I sincerely hope that others who read Living With Sickle Cell Disease will not “put it down.” I also pray that they come away with a new appreciation for what it is like to live with this little-understood blood disorder.

Information on how to order the book can be found on my website, www.judygrayjohnson.com.